In fact, Democrats and Republicans are making small, but
important progress on a number of issues.

Yesterday, the House passed the Farm Bill, which no one is
particularly happy with, but it cleared the lower chamber easily.
The Senate is likely to pass it later this week. The bill took
two years to work out and many legislators are voting for it just
to get it over with. But nevertheless, Congress got it done.

Extending emergency unemployment benefits got swallowed up in a
partisan bickering match over procedural rules two weeks ago,
ending in a Republican filibuster. But now,
there seems to be movement there as well. Democrats have
proposed a new way to pay for a three-month extension and
Republicans are listening. Yesterday morning
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said that the "reality is,
we’re pretty close."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is expected to
bring the bill up again next week. It could easily fall apart,
but at least for the moment, there's hope.

Even the anger over amendments, which was one of the
reasons Republicans filibustered the original unemployment
insurance bill, seems to be dissipating a bit. The Senate took up
a flood insurance bill yesterday and Reid allowed votes on three
amendments on it with more expected to come today.

Finally, there has even been progress on immigration reform.
House Republicans are likely to release a list of "immigration
principles" after their retreat this week. The principles will
include a pathway to legalization for undocumented immigrants
that will be contingent on certain security benchmarks being met.
Yesterday, Rep. Paul Ryan
(R-Wisc.) explained that before those benchmarks are hit,
undocumented immigrants could apply for a probationary status
which allows them to legally work.

The Republican principles do not include a pathway to
citizenship, something many Democrats have demanded. However,
as Greg Sargent notes, these ideas demonstrate that
Republicans are looking for ways to compromise. There is a long
way to go for it to become law, but once again, there's progress.

None of this means Congress will suddenly pass numerous
bipartisan bills. The parties are still polarized and Obama's
agenda is still unlikely to go anywhere.

But for a
Congress that supposedly can't do anything, it's actually making
progress on a few issues. That doesn't make the likelihood of
actually accomplishing anything that much higher, but it is at
least a break from the constant state of crisis Washington has
been in for the past few years.